29th April 2010

One of my more developed images from my first life drawing class. This class is taught by Mark Nicoll down in West Brompton. I was somewhat intimidated as I think most of the people attending the class have already attended life drawing classes in the past or are already art students. And this fx td comes in lol.

Going to keep it slow and steady.

GW

28th April 2010

Action line + construction. Proportions are off; however I like the feel of the front of the wuff, the rear legs look very static though. Also still trying to figure out the skull of the wolf :(

Checked some websites online that sell skull casts, quite expensive.

GW

27th April 2010

Still trying to get the hang of action lines and construction :-/

GW

26th April 2010

I feel like I'm regressing :-/

25th April 2010

This disproportioned fellow is supposed to be a wolf. Needs much more practice, me thinks.

GW

23rd April 2010

I can't believe I sketched this ^^


Must. Improve. Moar! :-)

Trying the action line/construction. Museum gallery was closing couldn't finish it :-/

Again, museum closed before I could do more.

Noticed lately that with my 4B lead, I'm able to control the pencil that I'm not stabbing into the paper, and getting better tonal variations. Still far from idea but I do see some improvement from a month before. Go wolves!

22nd April 2010

Did a quick studies of planes, but to be honest my mind was not on the subject.

Re-read The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals whilst at the museum, and suddenly, all the topics in there that were once foreign to me, became clear: blocking in, gesture, shapes, volume, form.

Which makes me a fair bit confused when compared to the Ryder technique now :-/ And hence the confusion. Since my long term goal is to draw wuffs, I guess I'll now look harder at the weatherly book :)

GW

21 April 2010

Too many books! Read a bit of The WEatherly Guide To Drawing Animals today. I've had it for awhile, but only today do I realize the significance of what is said in that book. Going to look into it a bit more in-depth, but for now this wolf needs sleep.

GW

20th April 2010

On my way home after buying some groceries from chinatown. Walked past Soho Square and saw this strapping fellow on a pedestal. I usually have my sketch pad with me so why not get in today's drawing before the sun goes down? ;-)

Did a rough gesture (3 times actually) then got the proportions as close as I could then did lining over them. One of my better attempts, me thinks :D

GW

19th April 2010

And a bit of sketching using the photos taken from the the wolves in bavaria, and the foxes from the british wildlife center. I think I can't work with foxes. For now :D

GW

18th April 2010

Aieee! Forgot to post last night!

Messed up the fox sketch... something weird about their skulls :-/

GW

17th April 2010

Bit tired from the zoo trip, however thought I've give a bit of gesture practice + lining over.

GW

16th April 2010

Going through some stupid infj issues right now. Having been very settled and balanced for the few weeks, I'm now again thinnking about what next to work on (drawing obviously) - not certain if I should get into Houdini again, do more demo reel work, or learn the hdk. Or learn pyqt. Or learn AI. Or learn this. or learn that. After making a list, I can't decide what to do. No time for it all :(

Tomorrow will be at Marwell Zoo with a few acquaintances, should be good fun. Haven't shot "wildlife" since the Bavaria trip. Can't wait to use my 300/4 :D

Here's today's sketches from the british museum. I was trying to do gestures to no avail, so I decided to do some really quick gestures, then draw on top of them.

15th April 2010

Not able to get in the mood today. Awesome, really challenging day at work, and exactly when I left work... oh well.

These were slightly longer, maybe 2 mins thereabouts.

Went down to Leicester Square after work to get some quick gestures in. 1 minute is NOT enough for me to get anything down :( Still, if other artists can do it, I am sure I can with enough practice.

Went home then did some on wolves from my bavaria trip, and some greek sculptures off flickr and stuff.

GW

13th April 2010

Was introduced to conceptart.org and registered today, read a little about gestures. Seems like some ppl are doing 5 second gestures (0.o)

Seeing that the 5 min guestures I actually had breathing space to look at the subject, I thought dropping down to 1 min would be a fair jump. Going to stick at it for awhile.

GW

12th April 2010

Quick gesture studies today! Am processing my photos from Cambridge right now, totally forgot about 'em.

11th April 2010

Visited Cambridge today, and whilst at Trinity College, found this 6 marvelous sculptures. Spent half an hour doing quick gesture practice.

Still a long way to go, but a lofty goal is never a paved road.

GW

10th April 2010

Went with a few acquaintances to the Imperial War Museum.

Laster, back home I started doing some 5 minutes Gesture practice. Eww....

9th April 2010

About 40 mins at the brit museum today. Very slow :( And I don't think I did a good job. I will persevere!!!!

GW

8th April 2010

The British Museum is open till 8.30pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and I am usually there to practice. Spent about an hour on this sketch, trying to correct errors etc. Didn't turn out that well but oh well. At least I tried :) It's mainly trying to get a technique I can use to reliably get the block-in correct. It's now sort of a mix-mash with ryder/bridgeman/negative space.

I remember Tony Ryder said in his book that his mentor mentioned if he were to master the block in at the start of the learning process, it'd cut down loads of time later on. I am going to follow on that line of thinking, and focus more on the blocking-in stage for the time being.

Am also being recommended to look into gestures.

In the post today was Ken Hultgren's book: The Art Of Animal Drawing. Will probably spend the evening going through it as the hour at the BM pretty much drained me :-/

GW

7th April 2010

Continuing on yesterday's bridgeman thing, another one. This time though, no rush. I spent about 45 mins getting as much of the proportions right as I can.

Have also been adviced not to give up on the Ryder technique. Not giving up per say, and will try it next time I visit the brit museum :)

GW

6th April 2010

I think I was jumping the gun on the faces as planes yesterday. Spent part of the evening reading through the start of the book, Bridgeman's Complete Guide To Drawing From Life, and tried out the how-to.

Interesting....

5th April 2010

I've owned but not really read Bridgeman's complete guide to life drawing. Decided to start work on the chapter of the head. Thought I'd get some understanding of how to represent the head in terms of planes. I'll only post the one page that won't make the reader keel over too much, the rest look bad!

Bit more negative space practice. Ergh seems like I'm regressing these last few days :(

4th April 2010

Was supposed to go visit Bath today, but when I reached the station, I was dumbfounded by the £48 return ticket! Not paying that for 3 hours on the train and maybe 3-4 hours in Bath!

Went to the british museum instead.

Tried the ryder technique again, this time using freehand.

Just negative space.

More freehand negative space practice.

3rd April 10

Long day out, just got this negative space practice in.

2nd April 2010

Still doing negative space practice. Only one for today, and it took a fair while. Still having some proportion issues. And missing the fit into the paper :-/ I keep reminding myself to step back to see the big picture, and failing :-/

1st April and 31st Mar sketches

Getting some shading practice in. Perspective is off though :-/

Rest are mostly negative space practice. Some details added in later :3